We’re happy to announce that pkgdown 1.4.0 is now available on CRAN. pkgdown is designed to make it quick and easy to build a website for your package. Install it with:

1

install.packages("pkgdown")

Development and deployment modes#

The main change in this version is that build_site() , build_reference() and build_home() gain a devel parameter that controls whether you’re in deployment or development mode.

  • devel = FALSE activates deployment mode, which installs the package into a temporary library, and runs examples/articles in a new process. It’s the default for build_site().

    If you’re using build_site() as part of an existing deployment workflow, you may need to set install = FALSE so that the package doesn’t get installed twice.

  • devel = TRUE activates development mode, simulates package loading with pkgload::load_all() and does all work in the same process. This makes it most suitable for rapid iteration, and so is the default for build_reference().

There were two related changes to build_reference() and build_home(): build_reference() no longer runs devtools::document() and build_home() no longer rebuilds README.Rmd. This makes pkgdown’s responsibilities more clear: it only modifies files in docs/.

Other important changes#

  • build_home() now strips quotes from Title and Description fields when generating page metadata. Additionally, you can now override the defaults via the title and description fields in the home section of _pkgdown.yml. Setting a custom title is good practice as it allows you to add “R” and “package” to the title, which is likely to be useful for SEO.

  • vignette("linking") describes how pkgdown’s automatic linking works, and how to ensure that cross-package links point to the right place.

  • For external packages, if we can’t find an existing pkgdown website to link to we now link to https://rdrr.io .

  • The rendering of \examples{}, \dots, \tabular{}, \subsection{}, and \preformatted{} has been improved.

  • The navbar is now automatically hidden with headroom.js , and the sidebar is implemented with pure CSS.

Acknowledgements#

A big thank you goes to @jayhesselberth (the co-maintainer of pkgdown), and to to the 77 other people who contributed to the release: @abodnahk , @agila5 , @AliciaSchep , @andrie , @aravind-j , @asardaes , @Bisaloo , @Blackglade , @burgerga , @cboettig , @cderv , @chfleming , @choisy , @CrumpLab , @davidski , @DavisVaughan , @ddiez , @docbiz , @dongzhuoer , @dpprdan , @echasnovski , @EmilHvitfeldt , @emilyriederer , @espinielli , @florisvdh , @flying-sheep , @Fredo-XVII , @grabear , @GregorDeCillia , @gustavdelius , @gvegayon , @hadley , @ijlyttle , @IndrajeetPatil , @jackwasey , @jangorecki , @jemus42 , @jennybc , @jeroen , @JohnCoene , @katrinleinweber , @kevinushey , @kkmann , @krlmlr , @maelle , @maksymiuks , @manish-saraswat-olx , @maurolepore , @maxheld83 , @maximilianmordig , @mcanouil , @MichaelChirico , @mitchelloharawild , @mjsteinbaugh , @msberends , @muschellij2 , @NEONKID , @noamross , @nteetor , @paul-buerkner , @peterdesmet , @ramiromagno , @rorynolan , @royfrancis , @s-fleck , @scizmeli , @sdhutchins , @seanhardison1 , @seymakalay , @sharlagelfand , @surmann , @talgalili , @TheOnlyArtz , @thierrygosselin , @thomasp85 , @tobyhodges , and @yiluheihei